Simply. Fascinating.

I've never heard of Will Wilkinson, but this piece has some "primal" thoughts that have to be reckoned with. He's scathingly honest, finding Sarah, well, sexy. I find it refreshing, actually, that thinking men don't get [too] distracted by bimbos and other brain-dead offerings of the female persuasion. But consider this:

Palin exudes sexual confidence and maternal authority, which in a relatively conservative culture like ours is the most recognizable and viscerally comprehensible form of female power. It makes a lot of men uncomfortable, but that’s because it’s the kind of female power they are most often subject to, and most often fail to successfully resist. I spent much of my life taking orders from women a lot like Sarah Palin — women like my mother and my Iowa public school teachers. Indeed, it makes a lot more emotional sense for me to feel led by by a woman like that than by some hotshot Air Force pilot. When a guy with a buzzcut says “jump,” I say “screw you.” When a woman like Sarah Palin says “jump,” I am inclined to deferentially inquire into the requirements of this jump.

Now I could quibble about the words "power" and "authority" which are not interchangeable, but I understand what he's saying. Is this what sets Sarah apart? Is it so primal that it has gone undefined thus far? It fits with our Catholic paradigm of authority coming top-down from God through the "great chain of being."

Interestingly enough, while Christendom counted on this theory to explain each person's place in creation and how vocations worked, it was rattled to its core by the horrific plagues of the 14th century. It would be a marvel to behold if human nature came seeping through the chaos of the deconstruction of the family and human sexuality just in time to keep us from going over a cliff.

As you know, the Church is proud to have glorified and liberated women, and in the course of the centuries, in diversity of characters, to have brought into relief her basic equality with man. But the hour is coming, in fact has come, when the vocation of woman is being achieved in its fullness, the hour in which woman acquires in the world an influence, an effect, and a power never hitherto achieved. That is why, at this moment, when the human race is undergoing so deep a transformation, women impregnated with the spirit of the gospel can do much to aid mankind in not falling (Closing Documents, Second Vatican Council).

Comments

[The Ancient Mariner]

Actually, I think the quibble's unwarranted; I suspect that Wilkinson knows exactly what the words mean, and exactly what he's saying. To phrase it a bit more explicitly, the form of female power to which men are most often subject is the power which arises out of and is consequent on maternal authority--and he's right about that. It's actually a very old-fashioned insight on his part--I think a lot of people these days would put the raw power of female sexuality (a power, be it noted, which is not rooted in authority) in that place--but I think he's correct.

[Abigail]

In one of her speeches, Palin described her daughters as "strong and kind-hearted." I thought that hit the mark. It's the way women are supposed to be strong.

[Kathy]

Lovely essay. And spot on.

The reason Palin has been so well received is authenticity. She's not trying to be the better 'man'. She's comfortable with being a successful woman.